NEWARK, N.J. -- Before the cameras went on, Doug Baldwin flipped his off.

It's a little silver handheld device that Baldwin has been carrying all week. He normally uses it to film his question-and-answer YouTube segment, "The Fresh Files," quite popular among Seattle fans. At Tuesday's Super Bowl media day, he quickly scanned the crowd with the camera, capturing the grandeur and pure absurdity of it all, before tapping the tiny screen shut.

"I'm going to try and document as much as I can and just enjoy the moment," Baldwin said. "I do (the editing) myself, so I'm probably going to put together something for my YouTube channel, but more so, this is personal for me to look back when I'm older so I can remember this moment."

It always seems personal for the 5-foot-10, 189-pound Doug Baldwin, undrafted out of Stanford, where he was roommates for one year with Richard Sherman. Unquestionably one of the game's top corners, Sherman was undervalued in the fifth round. Baldwin, though, had to watch 28 wide receivers get picked without hearing his own name called. And so developed the proverbial chip-on-the-shoulder.

Correction.

"It's not a chip, it's a boulder," Baldwin said Tuesday. "And no, it doesn't go away, because there's continuous doubt, whether it's about me or my teammates or the situation we're in."

Because the NFL was in lockout during the 2011 draft, Baldwin was unable to sign immediately afterward. So he moved into an off-campus house with a group of ex-Stanford football players, former Cardinal wide receiver Marcus Rance said, and even contemplated applying for regular jobs.

Now, Seattle has two members of Nerd Nation, the nickname Stanford football players have given each other. The whole world is fixated on one, Sherman, trying to fit him into a particular box. And that's a pointless exercise.

Here's what one nerd can tell you about the other: When they lived together during sophomore year, Baldwin was the neat-freak. Sherman left candy wrappers all over the floor, which makes sense because it's been thoroughly reported that he houses Gushers on Sunday mornings.

Baldwin barely eats on the morning of a game. Just pasta the night before. Then every game day, on an empty stomach, he listens to one song, "Something about the name Jesus" by Kirk Franklin.

As his ex-roommate Rance recalls, Baldwin has always been into music and, especially, gifted with technology. He used to edit songs and media in their house, and even built websites.

Once he stuck in Seattle, Baldwin began to film his YouTube segment, taking fans inside the Seahawks training facility and inside his own life. He started the segment on the advice of a local sports marketing agency that told him it would be a good way to "kind of put myself out there." You know -- like what Sherman did last weekend.

Naturally, Baldwin was asked about his gaudy former roommate Tuesday. And he discussed a different type of film.

"I watch tape," Baldwin said. "I think I have a good feeling for what a top five cornerback looks like and that's just coming from a receiver -- a pedestrian, average receiver. But I think Richard Sherman is definitely in the top five, without a doubt, if not the best cornerback in the NFL."

Last week, Richard Sherman was to Michael Crabree as a whole slew of media was to Seattle's receiving corps. NFL Network analyst Kurt Warner reportedly referred to the Seahawks receivers as average. On ESPN, Keyshawn Johnson and Cris Carter called them "appetizers." A Seattle Times story reported that, after the NFC Championship, Baldwin sought out a USA Today reporter and told him, "We appreciate you being in the presence of such average and pedestrian receivers."

It clearly bugs him. Still does a week later.

"Everybody has their opinion," Baldwin said. "It doesn't make their opinion an intelligent one. You can't just look at stats without context. We're one of the lowest ranked teams in pass attempts. If you look at the individual efficiency of the receivers, in that context, you'd see what we're about ... You can't name a receiver who's forced more broken tackles than Golden Tate. You can't name a receiver that has a better touchdown rate than Jermaine Kearse."

You can name 28 receivers taken in the 2011 draft, but only two -- A.J. Green and Torrey Smith -- posted more regular season receiving yards than Baldwin's 778.

"Doug Baldwin had a heck of a game (in the NFC championship), and he's a heck of a receiver, and has the stats to prove it," Sherman said, surrounded by half the world's football writers. "I think that these cameras could be anywhere."

But the big cameras all sought out Sherman, which was probably OK by Baldwin, because he doesn't seem too fond of them anyway.